Episodic simulation of past and future events in older adults: Evidence from an experimental recombination task

Abstract

We recently reported that older adults generate fewer episodic details than younger adults when remembering past events and when simulating future events. We suggested that the simulation findings reveal an age deficit in recombining episodic details into novel events, but they could also result from older adults "recasting" entire past events as future events. In this study, we used an experimental recombination paradigm to prevent recasting while imagining and to compare imagining the future with imagining the past. Older adults generated fewer episodic details for imagined and recalled events than younger adults, thereby extending the age-related simulation deficit to conditions of recombination.

Figure 1

Mean number of internal and external details as a function of (A) age group, (B) condition, and (D) age group and condition. The mean number of details (collapsed across internal and external) generated under the three recombination load conditions is shown in (C). Error bars represent standard errors of the means. Scatter plots and regression lines illustrate the correlations between the numbers of internal details generated for (E) imagined past and future events, (F) imagined future and recalled past events, and (G) imagined past and recalled past events. *p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01; ***p ≤ .001.